The Rashīdī History 3.3
The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross) 3.3
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3.3.1
Baber's first two attempts on Hisar failed, but, on being joined by a large body of Persians from Khorasan, his third advance resulted in a victory which gained him the possession of Kunduz, Khatlan, and Khuzar. Taking advantage of the reputation they had established, and of the defeat and death of Shahi Beg, which had just then (1510) taken place in a battle with the Persians near Merv, the allies lost little time in making an attempt on Samarkand, the capital of Transoxiana. They marched first on Bokhara, where the inhabitants opened their gates to them, and afterwards to Samarkand, which they found undefended, the Uzbeg leaders having fled on their approach. Here Baber was received with enthusiasm by the people, and was virtually master, for a time, of the greater part of Central Asia. With his young guest in his following, he remained in Samarkand for some months, when a strong combination of Uzbeg tribes, compelled him and his Persian allies once more to take the field — though this time with very different results. They advanced against Bokhara, which had in the meantime been seized by the Uzbegs, but were repulsed, and shortly afterwards were disastrously defeated at the battle of Ghajdiwan, some distance to the north of the city. The alliance with the Persians came to an end and Baber retreated to Hisar, where he was surprised by an attack made by a body of Moghuls in the service of the Uzbegs, and again experienced a crushing defeat.
3.3.2
He then retired to Kabul, but Mirza Haidar had now left him. After the retreat from Samarkand, his uncle, Sultan Ahmad, the Khan of Moghulistan, having written several times to ask Baber's permission for the boy to be sent to him, at last obtained it, and Mirza Haidar, "led away by youthful impatience," as he himself writes, availed himself of the Emperor's consent, unwillingly given, and followed his uncle to Andijan, then the capital of Farghana. It was about the beginning of the year 1514 that Mirza Haidar arrived at Andijan, and almost immediately afterwards entered the service of his kinsman Sultan Said Khan (the son of Sultan Ahmad), who had just then been conducting an expedition against the Uzbegs in Tashkand, but had returned to Andijan on the enemy evacuating their positions. During the following summer, however, the Uzbegs recovered themselves and marched with a large force to lay siege to the Farghana capital. Sultan Said convened a council of his chiefs, who were unanimously of opinion that they were unable, without allies, to contend against the power of the Uzbegs; they believed themselves to have a fairer chance of success by undertaking an invasion of Kashghar, and wresting that province from Mirza Aba Bakr, who then held it.
3.3.3
This resolution was accordingly adopted, and before the Uzbegs had time to enter the country, the Khan with all his Amirs, their families and baggage, set out from Andijan and advanced towards Kashghar, by a route leading through Moghulistan. This Mirza Aba Bakr was of the line of Dughlat Amirs, and was regarded by the Khans of Moghulistan as a usurper. He was an active and able soldier, though a cruel tyrant, and during his long rule, had made himself master of nearly the whole of Eastern Turkistan, besides several of the neighbouring countries. In 1511 he had invaded Farghana, but had there received a check by coming into conflict with Sultan Said, from whose forces he experienced a severe defeat at the battle of Tutluk, near Andijan. It was this victory over the usurper, that emboldened Sultan Said and his Amirs to attack him again in his own stronghold. Their enterprise resulted in a complete success: Kashghar was taken in 1514, while Yangi-Hisar, Yarkand, and the remainder of the cities of Eastern Turkistan fell shortly afterwards. Aba Bakr, driven an exile to Ladak, was murdered on the road, and the line of Moghul Khans was re-established in Moghulistan and Eastern Turkistan. Mirza Haidar, though now only fifteen years of age, was raised by his cousin the Khan to a high position, and his life of activity may be said to have begun about this time.
3.3.4
For the ensuing nineteen years, during which Sultan Said's reign lasted, the Mirza served him in various capacities, but chiefly as a soldier; and it was only after the Khan's death, which occurred while returning from an expedition against Ladak in 1533, that he abandoned Kashghar and transferred his services to the Chaghatais in India. He not only took part in Sultan Said's wars against the Kirghiz and Uzbegs in Moghulistan, and against other tribal enemies, but was entrusted with important commands on distant expeditions. The first of these was an invasion of the hill country, then known as Bilur, or Bolor, in 1527. The expedition was nominally under the command of the Khan's eldest son, Rashid Sultan, but seeing that our author acted as a sort of tutor, or governor, to this young prince, it seems that he had much to do with the conduct of the campaign. Bolor may be described, roughly, as all the small hill states lying south of the Hindu Kush, between Baltistan on the east and Afghanistan on the west—as the limits of these countries are now accepted. Thus it included Hunza, Gilgit, Chitral, and probably most of the petty states sometimes known as "Yaghistan." There appears to have been no cause for the invasion, other than that the inhabitants were not Musulmans;
3.3.5
but considerations of this kind did not weigh with the Central Asian Khans, and Sultan Said, as the author tells us, had always been ambitious of gaining glory by waging wars against "infidels." The Bolor states were accordingly overrun and plundered during a whole winter, and the expedition returned to Kashghar in the following spring. In 1529-30 the Khan undertook, in person, a campaign against Badakhshan, but sent Mirza Haidar in advance to begin operations. The Mirza records that he laid waste the environs of the chief town, Kila Zafar, and when the Khan arrived, his men had only to carry off what little had been left. The object of this expedition was to gain possession of the districts on the Upper Oxus—Wakhan, Shighnan, etc.—which had been conquered by the late Mirza Aba Bakr, and which Sultan Said, in consequence, considered himself the heir to. But the chief of Badakhshan was a relation and nominee of Baber, who took a view of the matter entirely opposed to that of Sultan Said, and threatened to support the chief. As Baber had now recovered, in India, the influence he had lost in Transoxiana, a letter from him to the aggressive Sultan Said, seems to have been sufficient to cause the Kashghar forces to be withdrawn across the Pamirs. But it was in 1531 that Mirza Haidar undertook his most important service for Sultan Said Khan.
3.3.6
This was the invasion, first of Ladak, then of Kashmir and Baltistan, and afterwards of Tibet proper, or the country known to Europeans under that name—an invasion as culpably aggressive as the raid into the Bolor states. There was much paganism, he tells us, in Tibet, and the Khan, always animated by a love of Islam and a desire to carry on holy wars, was led by his pious aspirations to conquer that infidel country. It was not the first time that Ladak had been wantonly overrun from the side of Turkistan. Mirza Aba Bakr, during his long reign, had once at least, carried his arms into Ladak, while it would appear, from what Mirza Haidar records, that several parties had been sent to plunder the country since the accession of his patron, Sultan Said, to the Khanate. Very little is known of these earlier invasions, beyond the mere mention of them by Mirza Haidar, and by the author of the Haft Iklim, who, however, obviously derived his information from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. That all were unprovoked and prompted by a mere craving for plunder, however disguised under the mask of religious zeal, may be assumed with moderate confidence. None of them, including that of Sultan Said and Mirza Haidar, appear to have prospered, or to have made much impression on the inhabitants, who have preserved their old religion and manners to the present day;
3.3.7
and though they have, in modern times, fallen politically under the Hindu yoke of the Dogras, they still keep up their ancient connection with Lassa, in all matters concerning their Buddhism and social customs. As Mirza Haidar says little about the fighting in Ladak, it is probable that the inhabitants offered only a feeble military opposition to the invaders, but trusted rather to the rugged nature of their country, the severity of the climate, and to the weapon common to most of the yellow races—passive resistance—to free them eventually from their enemy. And they were indeed successful. After subduing Ladak, a rapid march was made into Kashmir, where, to begin with, some easy victories were won, but treachery and discontent having appeared in the Moghul camp, Mirza Haidar had, after a few months' occupation, to fall back on Ladak, leaving Kashmir, to all intents and purposes, independent.